A brand is the most important asset a business can have. It is the only true, long term differentiator of a company, and without doubt it helps businesses change and grow. But although business owners know this is true, most are still neglecting the one thing that makes a successful brand: people. Brands start and finish with people. They begin on the inside, with humans, and are ultimately delivered on the outside, to humans. People are the pillars of a company that breathe life into businesses.

Brands are not a tangible product – they are a human construct brought together by opinions, perspectives and experiences. These experiences are made up of interactions with the product, a company’s culture, its impact on the wider environment, and how it communicates. Each of these factors makes up a brand. And every touchpoint for a consumer or employee matters. It is only when these experiences are fully aligned with clear values and purpose that a brand can live to its full potential.

People form opinions of companies in the same way that they form opinions of other people: it is an informed, emotional choice as to whether they like and trust you. Your company needs to have clear values and a meaningful purpose to allow people to make these decisions.

This is even more crucial when aiming to get millennials engaged with your brand. Some might be tired of hearing about millennials’ needs, and the fact that they are more concerned with a business’ ethos and vision than their parents were. But this is the generation that companies must aspire to.

This unique generation has found its voice and is not scared to use it. Look at the recent General Election, for example. Theresa May thought she was safe, but the millennials roared and swayed the result. They weren’t prepared to stand for something they didn’t believe in.

Millennials want purpose, clarity and authenticity, and these are the qualities that must be instilled into a brand’s ethos if you want this and future generations to consider buying into your products. Millennials are the people that will champion your brand’s purpose – if you give them one.

Luxury Brands Are In Danger Of Losing American Millennials: How To Get Them Back

Deloitte, the international consulting and financial advisory firm, recently published a report on millennials and their attitudes and purchase motivations in the luxury market. Entitled “Bling it on: What makes a millennial spend more,” it examines a survey with over 1,000 millennials, aged 20-30 years, in the U.S., U.K., Italy and China who expressed an interest in luxury spending.

Many of the findings were not unexpected, such as their willingness to purchase luxury goods online and the influence of social media and brand websites as a source of information to propel their luxury purchases.

But one finding popped for me: American millennials trailed far behind the other markets in their purchases of high-end fashion or luxury goods. Over one-fourth of the American millennials report no luxury purchases of $500 or more in the last 12 months, whereas the survey average was only 16%.

This finding has significant implications for luxury brands marketing in America because consumers’ past purchase behavior is a good predictor of future behavior. If 26% of millennials who are interested in luxury goods haven’t purchased any recently, which was reported by the Bain Luxury Study, it certainly doesn’t bode well for the future of luxury brands in the U.S., the world’s largest luxury market.The U.S. also leads the world in the number of affluent consumers. Credit Suisse reports that there are 13.6 million American adults with a net worth above $1 million. That is over 40% of the world's millionaires and more than the next eight countries combined.

In Unity Marketing’s in-depth “Millennials on the Road to Affluence” study, which included both qualitative and quantitative research, we studied young people’s attitudes about luxury. Our qualitative sample was a select group of millennials having post-graduate educational levels and who are pursuing careers that will lead to high incomes, such as law, medicine and health, engineering, tech and business. One of the respondents said “Luxury is nothing but a marketers’ label” which he said meant it was overpriced.

The millennials are nothing but smart shoppers who know how to use all the tools at their disposal to find the best value when shopping. While the Deloitte study shows millennials are most motivated in their purchases by quality, followed by uniqueness, the brand name, its ethics and image did not particularly motivate them when comparing a luxury versus a more affordable alternative. Applying the descriptor “luxury” to a particular brand may well turn these young people off more than it turns them on when it comes to attracting their attention and getting them to buy.

France’s Chanel is exploring the anti-aging secrets of three far-flung populations with a shared claim.

The beauty brand’s newly released Blue Serum took inspiration from Blue Zones around the world, places where the locals live remarkably longer lives. In an effort to prove the claims of its product, Chanel is inviting consumers to journey to these locales in a series of short films.

Chanel was reached for comment.

FEELING BLUE

Chanel’s Blue Serum is being touted by the brand as “a new horizon for skincare.”Explaining the inspiration and ingredient sourcing for this serum, Chanel filmed travel diaries to the Blue Zones that contributed to the product.

Against footage taken in Costa Rica, a female narrator says, “You can feel the life force in everything and everywhere.” Portraying this energy are images of waterfalls amid greenery.

Still from Chanel's Blue Serum film

The voiceover explains how Costa Rica’s green coffee can only be found in the country, which may contribute to the locals’ long lives.

In Italy, the Mediterranean locale is said to be the home of centuries’ old olive trees.

Chanel turns its attention to the sun in Greece, which it says is in everything. This includes soil, plants and the lentisk tree.

Discover the Power of Blue Serum - Chanel

All videos include the statement, “It’s something special. Some call it a mystery. It’s just life.”

These ingredients—sourced from Nicoya, Costa Rica; Sardinia, Italy and Ikaria, Greece, all hold antioxidant properties. According to the brand, a trial found the serum to reduce wrinkles, even skin tone and firm skin.

Tiffany & Co.’s Fifth Avenue flagship’s proximity to Trump Towers has resulted in an unlikely branding effort for the U.S. jeweler.

The jeweler’s iconic flagship, known for its cameos in Hollywood films and its annual holiday windows, finds itself on the same block as Trump Towers, the Midtown Manhattan home of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Since the election results were announced Nov. 8, protesters have been picketing outside the building, causing the Secret Service and New York Police Department to heighten security along Fifth Avenue, just in time for the holiday season.

"The truth is that politics and business do not mix, and when those worlds collide, good things rarely happen," said Rob Frankel, branding strategist & expert at Frankel & Anderson, Los Angeles. "'Cause marketing' is a huge myth, often alienating as many (or more) prospects than it might attract. "Overall, I see this less as a political statement and more along the lines of the signs you see posted when a store is remodeling, which proclaim 'Pardon our dust! We're open for business!'" he said. "Nobody really notices and business doesn't improve until the signs are removed and foot traffic returns to normal."

Branded barricadesAs a result of the extra security measures, storefronts near Trump Tower’s, including Tiffany and Gucci, which has its New York flagship within the tower, have seen decreased foot traffic as barricades deter shoppers and worsen congestion on the already busy thoroughfare in Midtown Manhattan.

Barricades along the street caused Tiffany to cancel its holiday window reveal. While the store remains in business with normal hours, its sales are expected to take a hit this year, according to CNBC.

In addition to the imposing presence of the metal blockades, security personnel have also been on heightened alert. Individuals headed to the luxury stores around the tower are the only ones getting through to the sidewalk, but this means potential shoppers enduring questioning by police before they are allowed to pass (Trump’s midtown Manhattan base causes problems for luxury retail).

Tiffany, for one, has partnered with the New York City Police Department to make the most of the security presence by designing branded covers for the police barricades.

The barricades, dressed in Tiffany blue slipcovers, have been positioned from 57th Street around to the jeweler’s entrance on Fifth Avenue, thus creating a Tiffany “safe zone.”

Doing so provides a pathway for passersby to view Tiffany’s annual holiday windows. While this solution ensures some consumers get to experience its windows, Tiffany likely missed out on the attention and crowds that make it a point to see its display this year.

The placement of the branded barricades also allows consumers to enter the flagship through its main entrance. Prior to the barricades being set up, consumers were encouraged to use the jeweler’s side entrance facing 57th Street.

In a statement the jeweler said: “Tiffany is in frequent communication with the New York Police Department and U.S. Secret Service regarding safety and security along the perimeter of our Fifth Avenue flagship. We remain open for business with regular hours and welcome customers to enter the store via our 57th Street entrance while any barricades along Fifth Avenue are in place.

“Our iconic flagship store windows, which feature sparkling scenes of New York City at the holidays, are now on display for all to see. Our façade has also been illuminated as planned.”

Alternate viewingsA digital solution has also been implemented to ensure that consumers who would rather not visit in person due to the barricades and upped police presence can still experience the windows.

Tiffany, Louis Vuitton and Cartier are among the 18 New York storefronts getting a digital audience this holiday season with help from Google. Google’s “Window Wonderland” recreates the feeling of strolling outside iconic retailers on a consumers’ desktop computer, mobile phone or tablet.

While about 5 million tourists descend on New York this time of year, many located in other cities, states or countries will not be able to get to see these in person, making this Google experience the next best thing.

Millennials, the much-studied generation whose behavior has seduced and puzzled luxury brands in equal measure, are no longer the sole focus for companies hoping to attract new customers: Generation Z, the label given to those born since 1995, is the latest target audience, thanks to their future purchasing power and the influence they hold over the spending of their parents and grandparents.

Unlike their older peers, who have watched technology gradually embed itself in their daily lives, members of Generation Z are known as “digital natives”: those who cannot remember what it is like to not have a cellphone permanently attached to their hand.

“This is an impulsive group who will turn adverts off, call BS really easily and hate being talked down to,” said Meridith Valiando Rojas, co-founder and chief executive of DigiTour Media, a Los Angeles-based group that has led the way in a booming events trend in live entertainment. “They know there is always something else out there as they have always had that information at their fingertips. That is hard for many brands to contend with.”

DigiTour Media hosts festivals where social media stars step out from behind their bedroom webcams and meet their teenage fan base. The festivals showcase people who have created mass followings on YouTube, Instagram and Music.ly, the lip-syncing app with over 100 million monthly users and that anyone over 21 is unlikely to have heard of. DigiTour Media group now puts on approximately 200 events a year, comprising both DigiFests (one- or two-day showcases) or DigiTours (groups of performers who rove the United States). The combined reach of the acts is 350 million people.

“It is all about bringing the internet to life — their internet to life,” said Ms. Valiando Rojas at The New York Times’s Global Leaders’ Collective conference, held in Washington this past week. A former music executive, she recognized in 2010 that there was no equivalent of a music festival on the market for younger teenagers. She also saw that when it came to hormone-fueled popularity, 21st-century social media stars had as much clout as the biggest boy bands.

“Generation Z are the most influential group of consumers right now. Whether or not they are buying luxury today, they will be tomorrow,” Ms. Valiando Rojas said. “So understanding where they think, where they go and how to advertise to them without rubbing them up the wrong way is crucial.”

That more and more people are looking for experience-led luxury purchases over products is another factor in why brands should be looking to build relationships with this demographic, both on and off their phones.

There is a distinction between Generation Z and millennials in how they behave within their social media communities. Millennials are keen to be unique, but members of Generation Z want to be popular and part of a group. Having grown up immersed in social media, members of Generation Z define their identity by how many “Likes’’ they get on Facebook or how many followers they have. They see their online personalities as extensions of themselves

“That is why these influencers are so important: Teenagers today trust these voices,” Ms. Valiando Rojas said, adding that she booked acts based on their popularity and what the followers of her company’s social media accounts suggested. She pointed to Baby Ariel (age 16), Jacob Sartorius (age 14) and the Dolan Twins (age 16) as some of the biggest names to watch.

London’s tourism agency says sales of goods eligible for sales-tax exemption have gone up by a third since the Brexit vote in June, which sent the pound sterling plunging against the euro and dollar. ”We calculated that over the last four months it’s been about 12% cheaper for Europeans to come and shop here,” said Chris Gottlieb, head of leisure marketing at the agency London & Partners. The pound is now at 1.17 euros compared with 1.3 euros before the shock vote to leave the European Union, while it has also fallen to US$1.25 from US$1.49. The result is that London has become the cheapest city for luxury goods shopping in the world in dollar terms, according to a study by Deloitte.

‘GOING TO SPEND MUCH MORE’

In tourist areas, the effects are evident. ”We’re going to spend much more money than we planned to,” said Radostina Nonova, a Bulgarian tourist, laughing as she lugged her bags on Carnaby Street - in the heart of London’s shopping district. ”We didn’t plan to shop too much but it’s obvious that the prices are very good for us. ”So we shop and we can afford to eat and drink outside. That was not possible years ago,” she said.

French tourist Christophe Disic said he did not come just because the pound was low but “when we changed our money we realised we had a few more pounds for fewer euros”. When speaking to US tourists, shopkeepers are quick to take out their calculators. ”We’re an American brand. Our products are designed and assembled in the States. But with the weakening of the pound it actually happens to be cheaper for the American tourists to buy an American product in London,” said Denis Sagajevs, who works in Shinola, a shop selling watches and leather accessories. ”It’s affected by the fact that they can claim VAT on their way back. We pretty much on a day-to-day basis explain that to customers from the States. It happens to be quite a strong sales driver,” he said.

50 PER CENT INCREASE IN SHOPPERS

Some shops are adapting their advertising and sales tactics to the new consumer behaviour. ”Before the vote, European tourists were couples who came to be together and maybe bought a couple of things,” said James, the manager of a luxury men’s clothes shop on Carnaby Street. ”Now, there are groups of friends who rush in. They grab everything they can carry.” James estimated that European and US shoppers coming to his store have increased by around 50%. Instead of spending on costly advertising in British newspapers as it did before, his firm is changing tactic to appeal more to overseas visitors. They have put up signs outside Underground train stations near the shop.

But there are doubts about how long the boom can last. While the good health of the British economy was confirmed by solid growth of 0.5% in the third quarter, the official forecasts for 2017 have been lowered to 1.4% from 2.2%. ”Our British customer sales are not as strong as before the vote and we don’t even know if this tourism boom is going to last,” James said. - AFP

With his shaggy beard and rumpled, olive-drab fatigues, Fidel Castro presented himself to the world as a modest man of the people. At times, he claimed he made just 900 pesos ($43) a month and lived in a “fisherman’s hut” somewhere on the beach.

But Castro’s public image was a carefully crafted myth, more fiction than fact.

“While his people suffered, Fidel Castro lived in comfort — keeping everything, including his eight children, his many mistresses, even his wife, a secret,” wrote Juan Reinaldo Sanchez, Castro’s longtime bodyguard. Sanchez’s book, “The Double Life of Fidel Castro: My 17 Years as Personal Bodyguard to El Líder Maximo,” describes his former boss’s hidden life of political ruthlessness, mistresses and greed.

Castro, who died Friday night at 90, made a personal fortune offering safe haven to drug traffickers, bedded a bevy of women over the decades, and once threatened his own brother, Raul, with execution when the brother lapsed into alcoholism in the ’90s, Sanchez’s book reveals.

Amazingly, most Cubans had no idea how, or even where, their secretive strongman actually lived. Even his first and second wives were kept out of the public eye — as was their leader’s two-timing. Castro cheated on his first wife, the upper-middle-class Mirta Diaz-Balart, with Natalia Revuelta. “With her green eyes, her perfect face and her natural charm,” Revuelta was one of Havana’s most beautiful women, Sanchez wrote — no matter that she, too, was married at the start of their mid-’50s affair. Diaz-Balart would bear Castro his first “official” son, Fidel Jr. or “Fidelito,” and Revuelta would bear Castro his only daughter, Alina.

Castro cheated, too, on his second wife, seducing “comrade Celia Sanchez, his private secretary, confidante and guard dog for 30 or so years,” Sanchez wrote. Castro also bedded his English interpreter, his French interpreter, and a Cuban airline stewardess who attended him on foreign trips, Sanchez wrote. “He doubtless had other relationships that I did not know about,” Sanchez wrote. Castro kept 20 luxurious properties throughout the Caribbean nation, including his own island, accessed via a yacht decorated entirely in exotic wood imported from Angola, Sanchez wrote. Taking control of Cuba on New Year’s Day 1959, after his guerrilla army routed the quarter-century-long dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, Castro vowed that unlike his hated predecessor, he’d share the nation’s wealth with its poorest citizens.

But while he made good on some of his promises to educate and care for his people — building free schools and hospitals with the help of his Soviet sponsors — Castro’s legacy was also one of repression and hypocrisy. Deep poverty persisted — teen prostitution, crumbling houses, food rations. Political opponents were executed by the thousands by firing squad, or sentenced to decades of hard labor. Castro had as many as 11 children with four women — only two of whom he was married to — and numerous other mistresses, Sanchez wrote.

Only those closest to him knew of these affairs. The only woman who dared to cause him any public scandal was his rebellious daughter, Alina Fernandez Revuelta. “I remember her in the 1980s, a pretty young woman who had become a model,” Sanchez wrote. “One day, when I was in Fidel’s anteroom, Pepín Naranjo, his aide-de-camp, showed up with a copy of the magazine Cuba. “Spread across its second page, Alina could be admired posing on a sailboat in a bikini, in an advertisement for Havana Club rum.” “What on earth is this?” Fidel exclaimed, according to Sanchez. “Call Alina, at once!”

What followed was an epic father-daughter blowout.

"Two hours later, Alina strode into his office, not in the least ­intimidated,” Sanchez recalled. “The ensuing argument was the most memorable of them all: Shouting reverberated all over the room, shaking the walls of the presidential office.” “Everybody knows you are my daughter! Posing in a bikini like that is unseemly!” Castro raged. Several years later, in 1993, Fidel learned through his secret service that Alina was plotting to flee to the United States.

“I am warning you: Alina must not leave Cuba under any pretext or in any way,” Castro told his head bodyguard, Col. Jose Delgado Castro, according to Sanchez. “You’ve been warned.” Two months later, Alina put on a wig, packed a false Spanish passport, and, with the help of a network of international accomplices, sneaked out of Cuba. This, too, ignited the dictator’s temper. “One rarely sees the Comandante allowing his anger to explode,” Sanchez wrote. “In 17 years, I saw it only twice. But when Pepín broke the unpleasant news to him that day, Fidel went mad with rage. “Standing up, he stamped his feet on the ground while pointing his two index fingers down to his toes and waving them around.” “What a band of incompetent fools!” he cried. “I want those responsible! I demand a report! I want to know how all this could have happened!”

Alina remains one of her father’s most outspoken opponents. “When people tell me he’s a dictator, I tell them that’s not the right word,” she told the Miami Herald. “Strictly speaking, Fidel is a tyrant.” Castro’s second wife and widow, Dalia Soto del Valle, is the least known of Castro’s women, Sanchez noted. They met in 1961. Castro noticed her in the audience as he gave an open-air speech, Sanchez remembered.

“Fidel spotted in the first row a gorgeous girl with whom he rapidly started exchanging furtive and meaningful glances,” Sanchez wrote. After being vetted by his aide-de-camp, del Valle was installed in a discreet house just outside Havana. Eventually, they married and had five sons, who grew up in hidden luxury on an estate outside Havana. “With its orange, lemon, mandarin, grapefruit and banana trees, the estate resembled a veritable garden of Eden — especially if one compared it with the notorious ration book that all Cubans had to use to buy food,” Sanchez wrote.

Each member of the family possessed his or her own cow, “so as to satisfy each one’s individual taste, since the acidity and creaminess of fresh milk varies from one cow to another.” Disloyalty exacted a heavy price. Dissidents were jailed for as little as handing out books on democracy. Castro himself displayed little loyalty, either professionally or personally. Even his closest aides faced execution if it suited his agenda. In the late ’80s, when an international scandal brewed over Castro’s exchanges of safe haven for cash with Colombian cocaine traffickers, Castro had no problem throwing those closest to him under the bus. “Very simply, a huge drug-trafficking transaction was being carried out at the highest echelons of the state,” Sanchez wrote.Castro “was directing illegal operations like a real godfather,” Sanchez wrote.Revolutionary Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa, who had fought alongside Fidel and Raul Castro, was at the center of the drug dealings, Sanchez said.

But when the US caught wind, Castro vowed an “official inquiry.” Raul was forced to watch on closed-circuit TV as a kangaroo court tried and convicted Ochoa — and then to watch the general’s execution by firing squad. “Castro made us watch it,” Sanchez recalled. “That’s what the Comandante was capable of to keep his power: not just of killing but also of humiliating and reducing to nothing men who had served him devotedly.” After Ochoa’s death, Raul plunged into alcoholism, drowning his grief and humiliation with vodka. “Listen, I’m talking to you as a brother,” Castro warned him. “Swear to me that you will come out of this lamentable state and I promise you nothing will happen to you.” Raul, who perhaps knew best what his brother was capable of, complied.